Even Angels Fall
by neworleansqueen
Summary: What happens after TR VI? My point of view!
1. Default Chapter

Even Angels Fall  
  
So here it is, the first Chapter of my first TR fanfiction! Mhm ... I´m really excited to know whether you like it or not, if you do, please review me, if not, please don´t be too nasty with me, it´s my first attempt and after all I had a lot of fun writing it up till now! Oh until I forget I OWN NOTHING! Lara, Kurtis and all other characters or situations you might know (or at least think you do) from this story belong to Eidos and Christal Dynamics (lucky guys), well apart from Ashley and Darren and maybe one or two other characters, I don´t know where this whole thing will end by now! But everything else belongs not to me, ok?! I hope you got it as it seems to be really important to state this! Well, anyway I hope you enjoy it and apologies for everything that is not correct about my spelling or the contents, although I´m studying English there might be some mistakes in it, forgive me. So now, enjoy (hopefully)  
  
Chapter 1 : Trapped again Slowly she moves backwards, the 9 mm ready to shoot anything that moves, one more step back and .... she feels cold steel at her neck, someone got her!  
  
Her arms sink down, she refuses. The person is standing right behind her now, stopping her with their gun from turning around.  
  
A male hand begins to wander down her arm slowly, almost softly. Leaving a warm, prickling feeling on each inch of skin it touches. As it reaches the back of her hand, it rests only a brief moment, before it´s fingers wander to the palm of her hand, smoothly forcing the pistol out of her hand. The hand lingers a moment at the palm of hers, then it continues exploring her body, softly, almost shy it touches her hip, resting there an instant too long to be settled there unintentionally. Slowly, it wanders above her flat belly, leaving a bitter sweet feeling within her. It touches the seam of her pants, slipping beneath it slightly and only for a brief instant, then exploring her flesh further it wanders gently over to her right hip, disarming her completely. As the hand finally leaves her body she feels a slight feeling of disappointment until it´s next moves slip her back to reality. He´s taking my picture! And there´s no way he´ll get it without a fight! Now that the anger has once risen in her, she whirls around, to at least face the slimy little being that is going to rob her. The attacker is on alert, just as she stops her turnaround, the gun is pointed on her again, this time beneath her chin. She closes her eyes for a brief instant to calm herself down and stop her from doing anything that would lead to a whole in her pretty face. Then, slowly she raises her eyelids and moves her head a bit upwards to face him ... She finds herself confronted with the deepest and yet most beautiful blue eyes she has ever seen. For this brief, but to her everlasting moment she feels as if she can see right into him, face the depths of his soul, she feels instantly attracted to him and not knowing why she bends her head a bit as if to kiss him. He moves in a bit closer, her eyes start closing, he is so near now she can feel his breath on her face, the soft touch of his hair on her forehead, his scent filling her nostrils, it feels as if she can almost taste him ... He suddenly points down the gun, now aiming at her shoulder as he brings distance between them, before he finally turns and leaves. A blur and again deep blue orbs are gazing in on chestnut ones, than both of them turn to face the huge, something, that is closing in on them. "Come on, I´ll give you a boost" Kurtis heaves Lara up, away from approaching Boaz. "Here take these two!" he shouts and throws the two Periapt Shards at her. "These are your specialities, Kurtis!" Lara responds. "Don´t take care about ugly here. Go on! You´re wasting time. I´ll take care of her!" Lara hesitates one last moment, then sprints to reach the closing gate just in time, she rolls and as soon as she passes it, the gate locks with a final thud ...  
  
This is the time when Lara wakes up. It´s the same every night, since her return from Prague, which is for almost five month now. And like every night she is now fully awake, thinking about that fateful day. After leaving Kurtis she had tracked down Eckhardt and when she had been sure to know the entrance to his lab, she had returned to the arena where she had guessed she would find Kurtis still fighting this ugly something. But she had been wrong. All she had found beneath the huge corpse of the spider - thing, was a smaller, if possible even more ugly, beheaded corpse of some kind of awful, fully armed elf with some kind of green liquid instead of blood and near it´s corpse some blood spilled over the ground. She had helplessly been looking around the arena, searching for Kurtis, but without success. Then, when she had almost given up hope, she had seen something, blinking on the ground. As she had approached, she had realized it as Kurtis Chirugai and bent down to pick it up. As her hand had slowly moved towards it, she haad felt some kind of power, streaming from it, so that she had nearly not dared to touch it.  
"But he wouldn´t have left it here ... he must be dead!" she had thought and a sudden emptiness had risen inside her. She had finally decided to pick up the Chirugai, as a memory of Kurtis.  
  
She then had went on to finish Eckhardt up and after she had succeeded in doing so (well it wasn´t exactly she who had finished him up, but she definitively has had a important part in it) she hadn´t even had a moment to relax, until Karel had shown his real face, a ugly Nephilim one. It hadn´t been easy to keep a clear mind with all these electricity bolts he had been shooting at her, but as she had finally reached the sleeper, she suddenly had known what to do. She had grabbed the Sanglyph and had rammed it into the ankles of the sleeper then she had to run for her life once again. After everything had calmed down, she had returned to the arena, to find a huge puddle of blood on the floor, together with Kurtis Chirugai. She had bent down to pick it up and as she had held it up, she had felt some kind of power, as if it had been struggling to get back to Kurtis.  
  
All this is still close to her. She remembers every word that had been spoken between them, she remembers the look in his eyes and even his smell. "Why exactly?" she says to herself. She had thought about this question a lot, without finding a satisfying answer. The one she liked best was that he was a filthy little thief who had trapped her, robbed her, threatened her and made her give up the last painting. The one that was more close to the truth was that he had risked his life to rescue her, by taking the Proto - Nepilim and Boaz all on his own, apparently loosing his life to make sure she was save (she didn´t like that one too much, as it made him look so heroic). And a low voice in her told her that she knew the truth, that she was thinking about him because it had impressed her to find someone just like her. Someone who obviously loved adventure and danger AND had given his life for her AND looked damn sexy, although she wouldn´t admit it loudly, even when she was all alone.  
  
She was Lara Croft, she had risked her own life some hundred times before and she was proud to be able to look after herself the way she did, she needed no romantic hero risking his life, especially not one who got killed in it. But still something nagged inside her, keeping her mind on him, at least the subconscious part, as her dreams revealed. A sudden noise, coming from the open balcony doors throws her back into reality. Instantly Lara is on alert. Damn it! she thinks, You should never feel safe enough to leave the doors open, apparently even not ten feet above the ground. Quick and silent she grabs the 9 mm pistol from inside her bedside table and rises. The pistol clutched tightly beneath slowly sweatening palms she sneaks up to the balcony doors. A soft breeze ruffles through the curtains as she carefully steps out on the balcony. She is tensed up and ready to shoot at the first sign of danger, as she looks around the balcony ... it is deserted. Just a moment before she can turn around to enter her bedroom again, she suddenly feels that someone is standing behind her ...  
  
Five months earlier  
  
"The person you are calling is temporary not available!" - "Shit" a brief moment the young woman starred at the phone as if she could force it into building up the connection by just shooting daggers at it with her eyes, she hesitated not sure whether she should slam it across the pavement in return for the annoying computer voice instead of the soft, so well - known voice she had expected. Then she decided to cramm it back into her bag and took out a cigarette. The slowly drift of a too -well -known taste down her throat calmed her up a bit and she was able to plan on what doing next. She needed to find her. She needed to know the truth although she knew the truth already, she had known her for almost thirty years now and she knew that it was not her way of revenge. No, Lara surely hadn´t killed Werner, but why was she hiding then? Ashley had lost her track somewhere within this dark, ugly city and now she was sitting at a small café with an unspeakable name in the depths of Prague without any sign of Lara.  
  
She had just got her back, after Lara had been lost in Egypt for five month. Five month full of fear, not knowing anything about Lara´s whereabouts or even if she was alive, it were five month full of nightmares and terrible visions of a graceful body burried beneath tons of stone, dirt and dust.  
  
They had grown up together, knowing each other from head to toe, until Lara discovered her love of adventures. At the beginning they had sometimes been on vacation together but Ashley had realized that this was not her kind of life. So she decided to study languages indeed and settled down in London, where she met her future husband, Darren, in 1988 and now they had a peaceful, undisturbed life in a London suburban. Though they had have no real close contact during the last years Lara´s and Ashley´s friendship still lasted. During their occasional visits and Lara´s narration, Ashley had sometimes felt a bitterness inside of her mouth and a little stitch within her stomach, being envy on Lara´s adventurous and exciting life. But every time her eyes lay upon her smart, handsome husband, she felt a rush of relief run through her, she had made the right decision. And yet now she was here, having a taste of Lara´s life, tracking her down all the way, which wasn´t the easiest thing to do, especially after she couldn´t go around pinning up posters, searching for Lady Croft, as Lara was searched for Von Croy´s murder and chased obviously not only by the french police.  
  
Or at least Ashley thought that there was someone else behind Lara, as she had found out, a man had been lurking around her all the time in Paris and she was sure that he was somewhere nearby... she only hoped she would find Lara before he did, as she didn´t know who he was or what his intentions were about.  
  
The sun had began to set and slowly the shadows crept out of the alleyways, Prague was definitively not her favourite place to be at night (well it wasn´t a nice place to be at daylight as well). She went back to her hotel, buying some newspapers on the way, which would hopefully help her finding Lara, or at least a hint of where she had gone. She couldn´t find any sleep that night ... a strange feeling lasted on her, as if she know that Lara was close around and yet far away. She couldn´t really define it, especially since Lara hat returned from Egypt that different.  
  
Over thoughts of how to go on the next day, she finally fell asleep about 6 a.m., just to be waken three hours later by the chambermaid, who had just stepped in to clean the room. Slowly Ashley crumbled out of bed, after the girl had hastily left the room with a bunch of apologies. She took a long refreshing shower and then put on a pair of blues jeans, a simple white T-shirt and her favourite sneakers before leaving the room and, just minutes later the entire hotel. Standing completely confused on the pavement, occasionally pushed by passing strangers, she looked around without any idea of where to go. What would be the most attracting building to Lara in this damned city *if there was any at all* she thought. She crammed a cigarette from within her pocket, scowling about the face Darren would put up, seeing her smoking again, but the last month had been too much to her and so she took up this bad habit again, then she decided to go left and took the next crossings at random.  
  
Lara leaned against a solid wall, breathing hard. Her heart slamming against her ribcage as if it was about to burst out. It was over, finally. She was glad about this, she had been long enough inside this unfriendly building even for her taste, but she still hesitated to leave. Was he really dead? Then how had his corpse vanished? And if he was not, if he was still inside, would he need her help, could she just reach for the doorknob, turn it and leave him here to his doom? *damn it, girl! You don´t even know him and where would you start searching, anyway you don´t care about him* she thought angry with herself, but she knew that wasn´t true. She had some strange feelings about him, god she even narrowly kissed him back in the louvre. And now she was about to leave him here. A sudden noise, though far away, coming from behind her, took the decision, she stepped forward and with a final sigh opened the door and stepped outside. She had only passed a few blocks, when she stopped dead in her step ... could it be ... was it really?  
  
The woman in front of her turned slowly to face her, a stunned but most relieved look on her face as she realized the young woman facing her. "Lara!" was all she said, before hugging her friend in an almost rough way, tears running down her cheeks, as all the fear and efforts of the last weeks finally burst out.  
  
***  
  
She knew the feeling to be trapped too damn well, but this never happened in her own house before. She always felt safe here and as she knew the building like the back of her hand, she never seriously thought of being attacked without any chance of escape here one day. Now that day had come.  
She feels the presence of the intruders body, can hear him breathe slowly behind her, than she even feels his breath on her neck.  
"I suppose you´ve got something that´s mine!?" whispers the stranger into her ear. The sound of his voice makes her heart cease for a moment before it begins drumming heavily against her ribs. She knows this voice, but it couldn´t be, he was supposed to be dead. Slowly Lara turns around to face the intruder.  
  
Hmm... who will it be? Can you already guess? I bet so! Well anyway, let me know if you liked it and I´m still not sure whether the passage about Ashley was too long, and if it was clear? Anyway, even I´m not sure where it will lead to, but I have something in my mind, that made me put this passage here! So maybe see you next time!? 


	2. David and Goliath

Hello again, so here comes Chapter two! Still not much plot in it, I´m sorry (but it has just been found in the depths of my brain and needs some more research before it can be released). I hope this is not to boring, tried to make it somehow a bit funny and ... well you´ll see if you still decide to read this, oh and by the way, not mine, no, no, belongs all to Eidos and Chistal Dynamics! Now, have fun, I hope!  
  
Chapter 2: Dave and Goliath  
  
"Well you know, I would have expected some warmer welcome!" Kurtis smiles down on her. "You bloody bastard, how dare you! I should have shot you in first place, when I had the chance." Kurtis bends his head to one side "Hmh ... I didn´t realize you ever had the chance, as far as I remember, it was ME who disarmed You?!" Lara feels anger building up inside her steadily. "It seems someone in here is not to keen on surviving the night, huh?" Instead of a response, Kurtis begins to scrutinize her from head to toe. As Lara looks down herself, she suddenly realizes, that she is wearing nothing but her underpants and a tight tank top, that doen´t even cover her navel, but is really practical during these hot months. She feels herself blush at his intense gaze. "You stay here and don´t dare to move or touch anything!" she shouts at him, while she hastily jumps into the bathroom. The clothes, she had worn throughout the day, still lie beneath the shower and Lara puts them on in a hurry. Fully dressed now she re-enters her bedroom, just to find that Kurtis has vanished again. He better shouldn´t let me find him she thinks, the anger rising in her once more, before she spots him standing at the balustrade looking up to the starry sky. "Beautiful night, isn´t it?" he asks without taking his eyes from the sky as she approaches. "So, what now are you handling it over voluntarily or am I going to get it by force?" "What?" she asks absolutely suprised by his fast change of theme "Whatever you mean, I wouldn´t even think of using some kind of force, unless you want some nice hole decorating your forehead!" she replies threateningly. "My Chirugai! Don´t tell me you left it in Prague?" he seems suddenly a bit frightened. "Ah, you mean your little toy, that almost beheaded me, huh?" Lara smiles, thinking over the opportunity of playing a bit with him. "Well, I´m not quite sure I should handle it to you yet, because last time I saw you, you turned out to be a damn half angel, trying to kill me!" Kurtis head turns to her, a suprised and asking look on his face. "What in heaven are you talking about?" - "Yeah heaven, that´s the cue!" she sighs "Karel turned out to be a Nephilim and he transformed into you and some other people I had met during my search for the paintings, pretending it had been him all the time, trying to help me!" if possible, Kurtis looked even more confused, Lara couldn´t help but smile (and recognize that he looked damned handsome that way). "I think it´s time we talk! Come on, I´ll get us some coffee and then we can go through everything, I´m curious on how you escaped!" she turns around, making sure he follows.  
*** "So now, how have you escaped?" asks Lara, spotting Kurtis above the edge of her cup, shifting slightly in one of the big leather armchairs in her study. "Hm ... a good question I presume ..." Kurtis nipps at his cup, sitting at the edge of the armchair opposite to Lara´s, both palms closed around the cup, holding it between his knees "...but to be honest, I don´t know!" "What do you mean, you don´t know?" Lara asks with a slight sign of anger in her voice. "I waked up in a hospital, according to the nurse about three days later, after I passed out, I don´t know anything!" - "You passed out?" - "Yeah, well maybe I should start at the beginning, huh?" - "Would be an opinion!" "Ok, after you left I fought this huge, ugly something, that apart from it´s impressing teeth, spilled some kind of slimy, stinky poison around and try to take me as dessert to Muller. "- "Well I wouldn´t have expected it to just come around and say hello anyway!" Lara interrupted, slightly nerved by his showing off "But what about the second corpse, the headless one?" "You saw it?" "Yeah, I thought you might need some help, so I came back to find the corpses and this here ..." she replied, taking the Chirugai out of her pocket, where she had put it earlier. Kurtis jumps to his feet, spilling coffee all over the floor, reaching for it. Lara pulls her hand back just in time, making sure to keep the Chirugai out of his reach "First the rest of your story please!" she insists. "You know I could get it anyway if I would, but your fingers look more lovely at your hand, than on the floor!" she doesn´t doubt a word he says. "Well", he sighs "ok, after taking out the first form of Boaz that damn something wasn´t finished, the headless creature crouched out of the spider corpse and attacked me, but it was easy to finish off, or so I thought! I had it down already, but somehow it rose again and stabbed me with it´s , I don´t know, was kind of a sting instead of an arm I think. I felt blackness catching up on me and the last thing I saw before passing out was the creatures´ head being cut off by my Chirugai after that ...? Nothing!" "But who could possibly helped you out? As I entered there again, must have been about an hour or so later, you had vanished!" Lara guesses, deeply lost in thoughts about it. "I don´t know, the hospital staff hadn´t seen anyone, they just found me on their front steps! But anyway, what about you? How have you finished off Eckhardt and who is Karel?" So Lara told him all about the final fight, about Eckhardt being stabbed by Karel with the third shard, his transformations and how she finally finished him and the sleeper off. "... well that´s it!" she yawns. "Maybe we should go and get some sleep now, you can stay for tonight, if you promise to stay in YOUR room and we can discuss everything else tomorrow?" he nods and follows her to the guestroom.  
  
"So well then, see ya tomorrow!" he turns around to enter the room "Don´t you think you forgot something?" Lara asks challenging. He faces her once again, his eyes widening as he spots the Chirugai, he had totally forgotten about that one! "Don´t worry, I kept it safe, here take it back, it´s yours!" she handles it to him with a soft smile on her full lips. He returns her smile "Thank you, for everything!" he murmurs as she melts into the darkness of the corridor.  
*** For a long time he had been lost in the darkness, a lonesome stranger wandering around, finally he had found what he had been longing for so urgently strength and blood, fresh blood full of vitality: He sucked it all in, feeling how it regained his strength, although he was still far away from his former condition. He looked down at the dead body, who had two hours ago been a handsome young man, in his tight grip. Hunting such weak creatures was usually beneath his standards, but everything had changed since she had crossed his way, destroying his plans ... well she would pay for it soon he thought grimly, crushing the spine of his prey without noticing, before throwing the corpse into the bushes beside him.  
  
*** Lara couldn´t find any sleep that night, she had too much to think about. After five months of considering him to be dead he had re-entered her life as if it was the most natural thing. Well maybe to him it was natural to break into foreign houses, waking their owners from their well earned sleep, in fact she hadn´t been asleep, but that was nothing to be discussed, and climbing up to a balcony, based in the second storey. She was wondering if he had truly just come to catch up his Chirugai, a simple telephone call would have done that one either. But beside the fact what he wanted, what did she want and feel about his return? She had to admit that she was glad he was alive, but apart from that she just didn´t know what she was feeling. Oh, yes you know, you just don´t want to admit again the little voice in her head. "Shut up, will ya?" Lara replied angrily, noticing that she spoke to herself! This guy has a really bad influence on me. Finally she decided that a nice little work out would clear her thoughts better than rolling around in bed, without the slightest chance of sleep. She quietly got up again and sneaked down to the gym.  
  
*** As Kurtis awoke the next morning, he looked around puzzled for a moment, not knowing where he was, until the events of the last night came to his mind again. He got out of bed slowly, not knowing if someone apart from Lara and himself was in the house and thinking about whether it was a smart idea to have a look around. I may run into her boyfriend he thought, the idea causing a stitch in his stomach, leaving a bitter taste. But as there was no one inside her bedroom yesterday ... what about her? Will she be pleased to find me roaming her house? A definite no, but she wasn´t pleased to find me on her balcony as well, so I might just dare it! Silently he left his room and went down the wooden staircase, stopping in the hall not knowing whether to take the left or the right passage, laying in front of him. A noise, coming from somewhere behind the right passage took the decision, as he went on to find out where it came from. As he passes another room, he finds himself in an impressing gym, that could easily catch up with some of these modern health - clubs. He just started to look around as he hears a rustle behind one of the crates. As he slowly approaches it and peers around it´s corner, he finds Lara, lying on one of the mats, sleeping like a baby. He decides to let her get some more sleep and instead trying to get something for breakfast for the two of them. As he turns around he finds himself face to face with a barrel. 


End file.
